Premiere this Saturday!
I’ve posted before about the ongoing Book of Hours project; it’s a planned 24-movement work for piano, one for each hour of the day. The individual movements are by no means programmatic (it would get pretty dull in the early morning hours); instead, I’ve attached each to something literary (whether a poem, prose, or quote) that goes well with that hour: for instance, Banville’s “Nuit d’Etoiles” is part 23, or 10:00 PM. I’m writing each movement as I receive commissions (e-mail to inquire!), and this Saturday is the first premiere from the series!
Last year Katie Crook commissioned a movement, so as usual, we worked for a while on narrowing down the subject. Over the course of time we discovered that we share a fascination with storms, so after doing some research (involving lots of reading) I came across a gripping poem from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” entitled “Patrolling Barnegat.” Below is the poem:
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WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running, |
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Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, |
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Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, |
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Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, |
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Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, |
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On beachy slush and sand spirits of snow fierce slanting, |
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Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting, |
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Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing, |
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(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?) |
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Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending, |
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Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting, |
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Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering, |
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A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting, |
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That savage trinity warily watching. |
Quite naturally it worked nicely as a ’storm’ piece, so I ran with it. The end result was a piece that is really quite hard to play, and certainly more than a bit wild! Throughout the piece are some lateral jumps that are a bit ‘dangerous’ to play, in that even though they can be practiced a lot, you never really quite know what’s going to happen in performance, sort of like the opening to Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. Anyway, Katie has worked hard to learn the piece; when she played it for me a few weeks ago, I was surprised to see really how difficult it looked; by the looks of things, if I keep writing pieces like this, quite a few pianists will get good workouts!
So I for one am certainly looking forward to the premiere!
Wild, Wild the Storm premieres this Saturday, April 4, at 3 PM in Stratton Hall (BJU, Greenville, SC)